The Oldest Tattoo Shop in The World

You can find the oldest tattoo shop in the world nestled among a diversity of worship buildings in central Israel. Between the churches, mosques, synagogues, and other places of worship in Jerusalem you’ll find Razzouk Tattoo, operating since 1300; just a 1 minute walk from the Tower of David. The Razzouk family brought their tattooing trade with them from Egypt to Palestine 500 years ago during their pilgrimage to the Holy land. Tattooing has been in the Razzouk family for 700 years since their start in Egypt and is now carried on by Wassim Razzouk, the 27th generation of the family to be tattooing. 

Wassim originally didn’t want to go into tattooing but after some convincing by his father he carried on the family legacy running Razzouk Tattoo. None of the other children from the 27th generation wanted to take on the family business so it fell to Wassim. He is now tattooing passionately along with his wife, sons, and their staff at the historic tattoo shop. The family has made their living tattooing pilgrims in Jerusalem ever since their own pilgrimage.  

At the time, the Razzouk family tattooed Christian Copts in Egypt with small crosses. During this era a small cross tattoo on the inside of your wrist would give you access to the churches. Those without the small cross tattoo were said to have difficulty gaining entry to the churches. This meant that Christian Copts would even get their children tattooed from a young age with the small cross to show that they were Copts. Some sources even say that the pilgrimage journey was even considered invalid if there was no tattoo to show for it. Copts are an ethnoreligious group, meaning that they share both an ethnicity and religion. They were originally from North Africa, they now make up the largest Christian denomination in Egypt and in the Middle East. 

Wassim included an excerpt on their site talking about his family history that I think is best told straight from him. I don’t usually include quotes this long but I think that it’s best heard directly from their lineage. He talks about their family history saying, 

“My grandfather, Jacob Razzouk (known also as Hagop or “the tattooist”), was the first tattoo artist in this country to use an electric tattoo machine (which was powered by a car battery) and the first to use color as well.  Many artists have learned from him and he has been mentioned in many books and magazines that discuss the history of tattooing (especially religious and Christian tattoos).

He had learned the art from his father who learned it from his father and the ancestors who came from Egypt and brought with them the wooden hand-carved stamps that act as stencils for the religious designs of motifs inspired from the bible such as the crucifixion, the ascension, the Madonna, etc… Pilgrims would stand in line waiting for their turn to be tattooed with either a cross or another design of their choice with the date as certification to their pilgrimage to the Holy Land and as a souvenir.  Many Pilgrims would visit another time in a different year and have the date of that year added to the tattoo.

My Father, Anton Razzouk, speaks of a man who had visited Palestine for decades on a yearly basis bringing other pilgrims with him from Egypt every year, and every year he would bring his groups to be tattooed and, of course, get tattooed with the year again, he ended up having tens of tattooed dates on his arms. Another story that my father is proud of is about the fact that his father, Jacob, had tattooed the Emperor of Ethiopia in the 1930’s, he wanted to be tattooed only by the original artist from the original family. One of the interesting recent stories is that my father was contacted by an Armenian American doctor who invited him to the USA to have him put an original tattoo for him (probably cost him more than a hundred tattoos!), but for him, the authenticity and the heritage was all that mattered.

My father (Anton Razzouk) taught me as his father (Yacoub Razzouk) had taught him, and I have decided to carry over the tradition and the heritage, now my two sons are also practicing this profession that will hopefully remain in the family for many centuries to come.”

The Razzouk family, having tattooed in their family history for so long, have some relics in their possession, like old stencils. They don’t have the oldest known stencils, those were felt pads found in Scynthian tombs. The Razzouk family and the Coptic people used stencil pads carved from wood blocks that were lightly inked and pressed against the skin to create a stencil. They still have many of these wood blocks carved with important Christian symbols such as the Jerusalem Cross that many Christians are still tattooed with today. They even use the original stencil blocks to give you a tattoo that hundreds of pilgrims got on their journey to the Holy Land. They have stamps from anywhere between 400 and 150 years old. Of course they also do regular stencils and custom tattoos but the stamps and history is what’s really special about this shop. Afterall, it is the oldest tattoo shop in the world. 

Left: Wood block stencil of St. George slaying the dragon from the Razzouk Tattoo website. Right: The Jerusalem Cross photo and wood block stencil.

On their site you can buy pendants that are replicas of the wood stencil blocks. You can also buy these old tattoo designs as a design and take it to your local tattoo artist to get it tattooed (if you can’t make it all the way to Israel, which I think is most of us). The history section on Razzouk Tattoo goes into more detail on some of the symbolism of these stamps and I highly recommend exploring their site and looking at the pictures of the wood stencil blocks, as well as following them on Instagram. So there you have it, the oldest tattoo shop in the world and the legendary Razzouk family!

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copts
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Palestine
• https://razzouktattoo.com/pages/history
• https://www.tattooarchive.com/history/religious_designs.php
• https://theculturetrip.com/middle-east/israel/articles/tracing-jerusalems-history-with-the-razzouk-tattoo-family/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_cross#/media/File:Cross-Jerusalem-Potent-Heraldry.svg
• https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-centuries-easter-pilgrims-are-inked-by-this-family-in-jerusalems-old-city/
• https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-7665647/Discovering-Jerusalems-sacred-sites-Razzouk-Tattoo-oldest-tattoo-parlour-world.html

Gatekeeper

Hi there! I'm Taylor, you may know me as Sterling Skull reception, or gatekeeper, or most recently Tater (thanks Chris). I love writing, creating and I love tattoos; so what better way to use my passions than to bring you a personal experience of our studio via a blog! Welcome, please stay a while!